22.10.13

Sheikh Hasina puts her name on the Roopur Nuclear Power Plant (Source: BBC)

What?

The Roopur nuclear power plant is a Russian financed and constructed 1000 MW project sited by a highly variable and erosive river, 30 km from Bangladesh's border with India. It was originally conceived, poorly, by the Pakistan government in 1961 as the site for a small 10 MW experimental reactor.

Just to the south of the Lalon Shah Bridge in the Ishwardi upazila (subdistrict) of Pabna district, it lies in the Awami League run Pabna-4 constituency. Indeed local, regional and international alignments are important for mega projects.

As an ex-physicist who used to believe that the worlds problems would be solved if only we figured out how to achieve sustainable nuclear fusion, it enthused me when I first heard of it. To add to the cringe factor I wandered and blagged my way into the Atomic Energy Commission in Agargaon back in the day and had a really interesting chat with them.

Political value

One one level this is geopolitical science, a lot of Deshi scientists were trained on Moscow, much of the left was Moscow aligned and this is a big boon for them all. For example, C S Karim, the ex-head of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and ex Caretaker Government Advisor was trained in Moscow, he must be loving this.

There needs to be a sober debate about all the aspects of this project and the power problem in Bangladesh.

Do our people know the impacts of a leak, or an accident, or an attack on the plant by India? Its potentially an amazing way to poison the southern half of the country. Oh yes and Dhaka.

What if there isn't enough water for cooling in the River because of upstream withdrawals at the Farraka Barrage?

How is the river morphology of the Ganges-Padma likely to change near the Roopur site?

What if a combination of events conspire to undermine the plant, its supply chains and waste disposal?

Research and Policy Creativity

This government made electricity-related election pledges and wasted their opportunity to make a difference by relying on short term, costly solutions (rental power plants) and dangerous non-solutions of geopolitical alliance and liability (Rampal Coal Plant with India, Roopur Nuclear Plant with Russia).

The country could really benefit from a soulful technological mojo, but it remains elusive. Aside from the climate doomsayer's environmental determinism and reckless epistemicaly autistic techno-optimism there are transformative vistas and creative solutions which perhaps are not so sexy but safer and more real.